- Does Obama blueprint reduce budget deficit fast enough? (+video)
- Whitney Houston: a singing sensation silenced too soon
- Pentagon budget: Does it pit active-duty forces against retirees?
- Could Mitt Romney lose to Rick Santorum in Michigan? (+video)
- More than 30,000 Germans turn out against anti-piracy treaty ACTA
Keeping Track: household debt
More personal income used to pay bills, mortgage
As the holidays - and holiday shopping - approach, many consumers resort to credit cards to pay for gifts. The resulting debt can be daunting.
According to the Federal Reserve Board, which tracks debt burden as a percentage of personal income on a quarterly basis, US households pay somewhere between 11 and 14 percent of their disposable income (that is, all income after taxes) on required payments for mortgage and consumer debt.
In the past few years, that percentage has been steadily rising. For the second quarter of 2001 (the latest figures available), 14.04 percent of household income went to such debt payments.
